Would you believe clowning around as a means to getting better? Unbelievable or not, dentists and physicians use pictures of clowns to calm the children down. The clown pictures seem to suppress or remove the fear of a child in being in a dental clinic or physician’s office. In addition, there have been many studies conducted using laughter as medicine. The funny thing about it is that it works in almost all the studies.

One study is about the Shriners' Children's Hospitals and goes back over 75 years when polio was rampant among this nation’s children. The humorous effect of a clown was introduced in to the lives of the long-term patients. What better place to show laughter and happiness than at a children's hospital. When the children were laughing, the cells that destroy tumors and viruses increased. Laughter seems to provide a sort of safety valve that opens when we express pleasure to let out the T cells and B antibodies that work to reduce the tumors and viruses.

There was a study used on children who were undergoing painful procedures or who were suffering from pain expectation anxiety. They were divided into 2 groups and asked to hold their arms in cold water as long as they could. Those watching the funny videos were better able to tolerate the cold, than those who did not watch. The positive outcome from this test was that laughter allows a person to not think about aches and pains and even see pain as less intense.

Research shows that laughing fifteen minutes each day could prolong your life. This comes from stimulating the blood flow and helping your heart. Laughter has similar health benefits as aerobic exercise but comes without the aches and pains. Laughter is a good medicine. Even the expectation or beginning of laughter is very effective.

Can you imagine a sick child in a hospital room getting a visit from a real live clown? That would be most likely better than any medicine they could be given. The laughter would be like a trip to the gym or to the park.

Laughter exercises the upper part of the body and stimulates the minds. There would be no language barrier for the children or the clowns. Everyone speaks laughter the same way.  The clown has got to be a special person; a person willing to give of their time and effort to brighten the day of a sick child. I'm sure if the clown could speak to us; he would tell us that his reward is so much greater than his time and effort that he has given.

All these studies with their positive results must mean something. Why not use it instead? Some drugs are addictive and even have harmful side effects. Most are likely to become scarce because of lack of raw materials. The law of supply and demand would make them expensive. It seems that the best solution is right there in front of us, yet we choose to rely on manufactured, artificial products that may kill us anyway.